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Saturday, May 29, 2010

Time Zones with Google Calendar and Synced Devices

I take a call in Denver from someone in LA who wants to set up an appointment (in LA) with me at 3pm. I put it on my Google Calendar which syncs to my Android phone. When I get to LA, Android/Google thinks they’re doing me a favor by “updating” all my appointments with my phone’s new time setting, so now my calendar is telling me the appointment is at 2pm (since I placed it on my calendar in Denver, where the time is off by an hour).

Why won’t Google fix this massive problem?! Why did they set it up WRONG in the first place? Everyone is complaining about it. Who doesn’t travel these days? Why would you ever enter an appointment time into your calendar for the WRONG time (to adjust for time zone shifts)?! This issue is a result of Google “helping” us, when in fact it ONLY causes problems.

I can’t think of a time when this “shift all my appointments” could POSSIBLY be helpful. If I place an appointment on my calendar, it’s for the time zone of where I’ll be for that appointment. I’m not ever going to “accidentally” be in a different time zone. I guess MAYBE this could be helpful for a phone appointment, but not so helpful that it’s worth screwing up the rest of my appointments as soon as I land in a different time zone (you SHOULD just be able to tick a box to select a time zone for an event if you want it to shift according to whatever time zone you’re in). I also shouldn’t have to set up an appointment and think, “Hmmm. Now what time zone will I be in compared to the one I’m currently in? Now, adjust for the time zone, and I should actually enter the appointment into GCalendar at XX:XX time.” Stupid.

There is a new “world clock” plug in that will display multiple time zones, but it does nothing to fix the issue of Google adjusting all your appointments when you enter a new time zone.

This seems like an INCREDIBLY easy issue to fix, so why the eff isn’t Google fixing it?!